Binky International Film Festival: Day Nine

Hello and welcome to Day Nine of “Binky International Film Festival”! We’ve made it, only one day more to go before we end this series and the year 2011 as well. I’ve had a blast doing this, so I hope you all have enjoyed this as much as I have. Today we are going to take a look at my “mistake” movies, aka “Romance That Makes Me Want To Stick A Fork In My Eye”. The genre romance and I have never really gotten along to begin with, but this year the only three movies in this genre that I saw were all torturous. They really do want to make me stick a fork in my eye. Seriously, Hollywood, if romance is this tedious… Maybe the whole celibacy thing is the right way to go after all. 😉

So what are these three movies that make me wish I could ge those combined six hours of my life back? Read on…

I watched this movie out of curiosity, and because of it I now fully understand why curiosity kills the cat. I thought I was going to die from boredom watching this movie, and if it weren’t for the divine Christoph Waltz, I would’ve turned it off after 30 minutes. I don’t know exactly what made me hate this movie, maybe it’s Robert Pattinson and the Twilight of it all, or maybe it’s just because it took too damn long to get to the friggin point or because it isn’t a story about animal cruelty in the circus as much as it is about the love affair between an older married woman with a young impressionable ex-veterinary student. And how cruel her husband is. Or something. I don’t know, I stopped paying attention about the time when Pattinson first made googly eyes with Witherspoon and got distracted by other things until that scene where Waltz strangled Witherspoon because it brought me memories of Inglourious Basterds (Christoph Waltz loves to strangle pretty blonds on screen, it seems). Maybe I just don’t have a romantic bone in my body, but dear god this movie was painful to watch, and not just because of the animal abuse.

Three movies disappointed me so deeply this year, and they’re all “sci-fi”: Super 8, Attack The Block and The Adjustment Bureau. But at least in the case of Super 8 and Attack The Block, there are aliens involved. Adjustment Bureau is just a romance masquerading as sci-fi and that is the worst of the worst. I feel cheated. You see, this movie started out cool and promising – there’s Matt Damon, running for Congress, and there are these mysterious men in suits and fedoras that are kind of like The Observers in Fringe, who act as some kind of guardian angels – making sure humans are all in their right path. Problem is, their only concern in this movie is Matt Damon’s love life. They go through so much trouble just to make sure Matt Damon and Emily Blunt don’t hook up, because if they do, Damon won’t be president. And if he doesn’t become president.. Someone else will. And… that’s it. Arrghh!! There are children dying all over the world and that’s all they care about? Really?? I mean, I get if Blunt’s character turns out to be evil or if Damon doesn’t become president, the Antichrist will rise to power or something, but no. They just are so against these two attractive people schtupping and Damon spends the whole movie trying to convince them otherwise (because you can’t stop attractive people from having sex with each other, weird men in suits!). At the end I couldn’t take it anymore and turned it off before the movie ended because it made me want to blow my brains out. That was 106 minutes of my life (well, a little less because I didn’t finish it) I could never get back, Matt Damon. I hope you’re happy.

The last romance in this list is no better than the other two, but the good thing is, I already know it was bad before I saw it – from the scathing reviews to the many disappointed comments in NY Magazine’s Vulture comment section – so I knew exactly what I was getting going in and therefore I can enjoy this movie more. First, it was just too much fun making fun of Anne Hathaway’s fake British accent. I mean, dear god, it was atrocious! She slipped on and off and halfway through the movie, she even sounded Irish. It was hilarious. She’s a good actress, but she really needs a better dialect coach. Even Reese Witherspoon in Vanity Fair put her to shame! Dear Producers, hire British actresses to play British roles next time. Problem solved. Second, I don’t really get the point of the movie. I haven’t read the book but even I know the premise isn’t something that translates to film easily. It’d take a group effort of incredible director, screenwriters and actors – and this one just fell short, despite the author of the book adapting it to screenplay himself. Dan Humphrey, take note. It’s always better if someone else adapts your book. Luckily though, Jim Sturgess is just so darn cute that I didn’t mind having to stare at him for two hours, even if Hathaway’s accent gets in the way of enjoying his gorgeousness every now and then.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

And there you have it, Day Nine of Binky International Film Festival. We only have one more day left so I hope you’ll come back tomorrow for our final day, where we’ll be taking a look back at some “Cool Dudes Flicks” to end the series. I’ll see you soon!